The primary purpose of this agreement is to support the mass production, distribution, and evaluation of lilioceris egena a new biological control agent of air potato

The Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services Florida (FDACS) received a $150,000 Cooperative Agreement from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025), effective May 1, 2025 through April 30, 2026. This award supports the mass production, distribution, and evaluation of Lilioceris egena, a biological control agent for air potato, an invasive weed species. FDACS will maintain laboratory colonies of the beetle, optimize non-quarantine colony production methods, develop efficient field release protocols, and monitor establishment and dispersal of L. egena populations across invaded ranges to assess impacts on air potato competitiveness.

The project deliverables include field research activities to determine oviposition behavior on air potato bulbils, evaluation of pesticide toxicity to the biological control agent, and monitoring of persistent populations within and dispersal from release sites. These activities are designed to complement ongoing biocontrol efforts with the previously released L. cheni species, with the combined objective of reducing air potato populations in natural areas and facilitating recovery of native plant communities. By advancing sustainable biological control methodologies with demonstrated benefit-to-cost ratios ranging from 5:1 to greater than 1,000:1, this cooperative agreement supports APHIS's mission to protect U.S. agriculture and natural resources from invasive pests.

Activities

The cooperator will maintain laboratory colonies of the air potato biological control agent, L. Egena; develop methods to optimize L. Egena non-quarantine colony production; investigate methods for most efficiently conducting field releases of L. Egena; determine whether L. Egena will oviposit on bulbils on the vine, or only post-dehiscent bulbils; monitor for establishment of persistent L. Egena populations within release sites, dispersal within release sites, and dispersal from release sites to neighboring populations of air potato vine; and test whether common mosquito pesticides will be as toxic to L. Egena as they are to L. Cheni. Deliverables and expected outcomes: biological control is the safest and most sustainable method for controlling landscape scale invasive weeds. On the front end, biological control can be very expensive due to the cost of locating, identifying, and testing potential biocontrol agents. Once agents are released, the economic returns on successful programs are overwhelmingly positive with benefit-to-cost ratios from 5:1 to > 1,000:1. Benefits of the air potato project are already accruing following the release of L. Cheni. IT is believed that damage by L. Egena to vegetative propagules will couple with foliar damage by L. Cheni to further reduce numbers of air potato plants in natural areas and thereby foster the recovery of native plant communities. This outcome will free local, state, and federal natural resource managers to redirect limited weed control resources toward other problem plants. Intended beneficiary(IES): the agricultural and nursery industries of florida and other states throughout the southeastern US will directly benefit from this project. In addition, positive impacts to those states' environmental resources will also see a benefit. Subrecipient activities, if known or specified at the time of award: N/a.